In this blog I ask the question what is the price should City Halls put on building and supporting communities. I analyse what the Summer in the City trials cost and look at what Limerick Got in Return.

Some key numbers:-

·       Beach installation €12,500 of direct costs

·       Traffic Management €53,000+

·       Total budgeted cost €233,908

·       Crescent Fountain fixed for 8-10K not €265,000.

Evaluating Cost and Fun as an Output

We were asked at last month’s Metropolitan Council meeting for details about the cost of this year’s Summer in the City programme.   I think the numbers below show that Limerick’s taxpayers got very good value especially when compared to other such events.  And I want once more to thank the people of Limerick for embracing the trials and showing how our city can work differently and be more fun even in the normally very quiet month of August.  The numbers below will never capture all of the hours and hours of volunteered by residents who helped plan, run and tidy up after events all through the month and spread the word to friends near and far.  

The temporary changes to public realm and animation created a new welcome dynamic on our streets especially for residents and visitors and help our city centre businesses in the process.   It also achieved the purpose of showing with temporary trials the impact of some of the changes I am proposing in the public realm and mobility plans out for consultation at the moment.

I like to think the success of the summer gave a little nudge of final comfort to the private investors who have since announced significant hotel investment plans in Bedford Row and opposite Arthur’s Quay shopping centre and to those opening new activities like Kelly’s Breath Better Yoga in the refurbished Clarkes on Thomas St, Dalton’s soon to open new Rift on Thomas St and Shane’s new coffee shop in the long vacant shop beside his Spar at the corner of Catherine Street and Glentworth Street.

I encourage councillors to keep asking questions about public monies, and the public is entitled to see the answers.   

However, when questions are asked at the Metro Council (rather than Mayoral questions in the full council meeting we had earlier this week) it complicates things as I am not a member of the Metro Council and so would not normally be there to present or discuss any question raised.  This is key if clarification or context is needed and to ensure that the public understand my perspective fully.  This is even more important when a councillor seeking information has taken a position to oppose an initiative from the outset.  

But that all said, none of that means that the spending of public monies should not be scrutinised fully so here’s the latest information.

Why publish this information release

I understand that in preparing the formal response to the above question at the Metro meeting the officials did not include any specific figures because some final invoices are still being collected. I would have taken a different approach myself but I understand why that choice was taken.  While the final account must absolutely be accurate, I do believe however that not having every final invoice should now prevent us from giving councillors and the public a reasonable provisional account of what was spent at this stage.

I therefore want to set out here key information even before we have all the final numbers. Once the final reconciliation has been completed, we will publish a more detailed schedule and make it available to Councillor Slattery as promised.

The provisional cost

The current provisional budgeted cost of the complete Summer in the City programme at the time of the question referred to above was estimated by the officials to be €233,908.20. That is a budget uplift of €93,908 on the original allocation of €140,000 from the Mayoral Fund. 

But it is not all spending on animation as we might understand it. It also includes an allocation of over €53,000 for traffic management plan and operations to ensure the safety of all – More budget details in Appendix A.

The uplift is not caused by unexpected cost overruns.  I made the conscious decision to provide that additional funding when it became clear in late July that there was scope for and indeed a need especially responding to additional community interest for its scale and variety to be expanded and to address weaknesses in the original budget that threatened the quality and delivery of the programme. I think everyone will agree that that has proven to be the right decision and has given the result we all wanted.  Indeed, it happens all of the time and, for example, I am considering doing likewise now for Christmas to accelerate the improvements we anticipated could only occur next year over our three year plan as we might have some unanticipated savings from elsewhere to spend before year end.

What was Summer in the City about

It is worth remembering that Summer in the City was designed to bring life, activity and families into non-traditional parts of the city centre. The idea was simple – choose geographically separated areas, try out new approaches for each and see the month develop hopefully with people walking from area to area which would emphasise the sense of a city coming alive in an otherwise “dead” summer holiday month.  People walking from point to point also increases the footfall for businesses all over the city from Steamboat Quay to High Street and over to Nicholas Street and helps prove the approach in our new public realm and mobility strategies as well as the Civic Spine we are creating from King John’s Castle along O’Connell Street up to the Crescent.

The programme therefore included the temporary beach at Steamboat Quay, the Glentworth Street garden, activities at the traditional Georgian meeting points of the Crescent and St John’s Square, animation of Nicholas Street and Back Lane, and included support for other major events taking place in Limerick, including notably in Arthur’s Quay.  It was also designed to complement other concerts and events taking place like the Docklands concerts and the Irish Skateboard championships which did not themselves get Summer in the City financial support. 

The effect achieved was an overall sense that Limerick had come alive for August and people all over the country watching and complimenting a different Limerick summer.   Many people’s bond with the city was re-established in ways reminiscent of when the Three Bridges walk first became popular.

This was my first time trying out something this ambitious.  I will be the first to admit that the programme was not perfectly executed. I have already been open about that.  But when you try different things and take risks, you will not get everything right straight away.  You learn, adapt and improve.  When issues emerged, I had a choice: allow the programme to struggle on or intervene and make additional funding available to solve issues so it could be delivered properly. I chose delivery.

But in making those decisions, I was also aware of very significant savings the team’s choices were providing us compared to the original plans and these more than compensated for the additional allocations.

Let me deal with some of the main items.

What the beach actually cost

A great deal of inaccurate speculation has surrounded the temporary beach.  I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight.

Some people have chosen to make unfair assertions about a waste of €40,000 euros of taxpayer monies for a beach – using a figure I assume derived from 2024, although incorrectly so because the 2024 cost of €46,601 related to the full programme of activities at the Crescent.  That figure was not simply the cost of the trial beach installation of that summer. Other keyboard warriors even put the cost of this year’s beach at more than €100,000 for dramatic effect.

The facts are that I have been advised that the direct installation cost of the beach itself came within the budget of €12,500.  True, in advance, a long-overdue and much needed deep-clean power-washing of the entire area was undertaken at a cost of €6,000 but that is something that we should have been doing in any event for the residents and businesses there.  So while included in the appendix and budget for completeness, it is hardly a beach installation cost.   

An additional budget of €2,000 had to be allocated to replace the furniture and other items stolen one night during the month.  Of course, the presence of additional people in the area also meant additional cleaning and bins to be emptied over the course of the month.  But this should be no surprise: we do that all around our city where people gather.

Those modest sums delivered a popular free amenity on the riverfront which was used by families and their children and others throughout the programme. Whatever view one takes of the initiative, the claim that the beach itself cost anything approaching €40,000 or €100,000 is simply wrong and I believe it was a good use of modest public monies as a project.

Programme Activation costs

It is worth noting that almost no activation funding was in the end allocated to animate the beach – the location and design itself worked to attract people from early morning to late in the evening.  Of course aligning with a solar eclipse, nearby skateboard competition and BBQ’s from the local French Table helped. But it started strongly anyway as a result of the free publicity at a national level out of the debate which followed early opposition to the Summer in the City activities. All through the month, curious minds, who had heard the late July discussions, turned up, liked what they saw and stayed, told friends and even returned themselves over and over.  And the good weather was a welcome factor too.

Very little taxpayer programme expenditure was required too for very successful Augusts at the Back Lane and Nicholas Street, while St John’s Square involved relatively modest activity costs. The principal programme expenditure related to Glentworth Street and the Crescent.

The Crescent and Glentworth Street

The Crescent programme started slowly but improved considerably towards the end of the month as community events led the way and people from all corners of Limerick gathered to have fun together.

As final invoices come in we will have a better breakdown to provide of the cost between the two locations. 

I know some have a particular political interest in the costs of the long-table event as well as the beach so I will explain my understanding of the position there. 

Officials allocated a budget of €7,500 for this event which was comparably much higher than the budgets for other individual events, which were generally €2,000 or less.

The final direct expenditure for those who attended the long-table meal which numbered approximately 200 people, was approximately €3,000.  This included costs of rental of chairs and tables and a significant spend on marketing including flyer drops to make sure the local neighbourhoods was aware of it and understood they were invited.  It has to be pointed out that all the attendees brought their own food or bought it from neighbouring businesses on the night which was not fully appreciated when the original budgets were set. 

In addition, to other events that day already taking place under the general community call out, the organisers, as they had budget headway available, incurred additional costs to pay for extra entertainment (€900), and coffees and recyclable cups, sweets and ice cream (€2306) which were availed of by the approximately 500 people who turned up on the night to enjoy the wider evening entertainment programme.

Communications/Marketing expenditure

Separate from the cost of the launch, a significant marketing/branding budget of some €10,000 was allocated and commissioned by the officials as part of the project, in addition to bespoke spend by some of the event organisers and photography etc.  The number for the Long Table event above included over 600 euros, including for flyers to ensure the local neighbourhood knew about it and could attend.

I expect when the final figure is available, to be able to publish details transparently and will be asking the team to collate the impact it made.

Expenditure avoided

I also think it is only fair to take into account spending that did not occur because different decisions that those originally planned were taken along the way.  Two very significant items which represent a combined saving of €265,000 or more come to mind.

(a)    Painting at the Crescent  The initial estimated cost to paint the road surface of the Crescent for the month was around €10,000.  No one wanted to spend that and so it was agreed not to proceed.  Instead, community volunteers, including a group who volunteered their time to organising the long-table event, carried out that work without charge.  And afterwards, social media carried photos of kids and much older “kids” playing on the painted surfaces.

(b)    Fountain at Daniel O’Connell  Secondly, based on 2024 estimates, I had set aside approximately €100,000 of Mayoral Funding to get the fountain at the Crescent working again. This was to be done in time for the Summer in the City.  I was then presented with a recommendation from the Director of Service just before the summer to spend approximately €265,000 with the advice that it would not be possible to fix the fountain and I should instead agree with the recommendation to replace it in full as well as undertaking associated repairs.

I could not find a way to justify that spend.

The Council’s transport team asked to be given a chance to work on it and ultimately with other colleagues repaired the fountain for less than €10,000. That decision avoided more than €255,000 of the proposed capital expenditure while bringing the fountain back into operation.  We may have repairs to do over the upcoming years and there is some improvement works we might still do , but we can do a lot of that from the saving we have already made.

These savings did not mean the other monies were not spent but they are, however, highly relevant when assessing in the round whether proper care was exercised with public money.

In terms of the use of the Mayoral Funds, the savings in the fountain allocation gave me the latitude without impacting on other measures to allocate additional funding to enhance the Summer in the City.

Economic activity generated

It is beyond debate now that the programme also supported economic activity across the city with numerous traders going public or sending me emails since to bear witness to the significant additional business they had over normal August expectations. 

We now have national interest in Limerick’s “Summer in the City” programme and the ability to leverage that even further to attract even more people to the city centre in the next two years in the run up to the Ryder Cup (Sept 2027) and Europride (Aug 28).

Additionally, even though €23,000 of money was used to encourage the TAFISA EU Games for All, the Obstacle Course and the World Frisbee events to use city centre locations, this has to be taken in the context that between them, the organisers of those events purchased more than €30,000 in Limerick Gift Cards, ensuring that even more money was spent with participating Limerick businesses.

And if we keep this momentum up and Limerick builds a reputation as one of Ireland's most liveable cities the private sector investment in our city centre announced since August will certainly not be the last.   

The full account will be published

€233,908.20 is a significant amount of public money and so while I believe it important to release provisional figures now, instead of withholding numbers simply because every final invoice has not yet been processed, I also commit that when the reconciliation is complete, we will publish the detailed schedule of costs.

As a final observation, I believe that the overall spend on this innovative idea of a month’s activities all across the city for the month of August must also be taken in the context of spending on the following much shorter recent events which also appropriately receive very significant Council support as follows:-

(a)    St Patrick’s Day Festival Weekend (2-3 days): €439,664

(b)    RiverFest (4 days): €577,139 (€514,856 in 2024)

(c)     All-Ireland Homecoming & World Cup Final Watch Party (1 day): €269,523.75 total comprising €264,450 in Council support, plus €5,073.75 from the Mayoral Fund for Garda deployment for the World Cup Final Watch Party.

Summer in the City was ambitious. There was always a risk of failure but I am delighted it succeeded. Improvement does not come without change and change brings risk.  But when innovation works, we get the courage to keep trying. 

The project brought thousands of people into public spaces, supported major events, created new experiences for families and demonstrated what our city can become when we are prepared to try something different.  Importantly, it brought smiles to the faces of so many kids and with them their parents and gave so many more of our children summer holiday stories to share when they returned to school earlier this month – even if their parents were not able to afford trips to Kilkee, Ballybunion or Lanzarote.

I think we all now can look forward to planning even more for 2027 knowing that there is a real appetite now in Limerick for a similar, even enhanced programme next year.

John Moran
Mayor of Limerick

Appendix A - August Activations Budget Breakdown